In the late 20th century, Manuel Castells' theory of the network society emerged to describe a new social structure powered by information and communication technologies. Castells argued that ICTs like the internet helped create far-flung interconnected networks and new types of social relationships. Four major "public squares" formed from ICTs in the 21st century: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Google's services. Social herding theory also emerged, proposing that individuals decide to follow groups and imitate behaviors due to sociological forces like uncertainty, rather than making independent decisions. These sociological factors that encourage herding can be broken down into social, political, economic, and psychological influences.

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The Network Society
Antonis Valamontes
September, 2019
Power, Empowerment and Governance in the Network Society

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In the late 20th century the concept of the a network society was closely
associated with interpretation of the social implications of globalization
and the role of electronic communications technologies in society. The
definition of a network society given by the foremost theorist of the
concept, Manuel Castells (2004 p. 3) is that it is 'a society whose social
structure is made up of networks powered by micro-electronics-based
information and communications technologies.' As Castells shows in his book,
historically, there have always been social networks: the key factor that
distinguishes the Network Society today is that the use of Information and
Communications Technologies helps to create and sustain far-flung
inter-related networks in which new kinds of social relationships are
created.These new relationships have created a new Global Digital Community
with a new Digital Public Square. Four major Public Squares that formed from
ICTs since the beginning of the 21st century, are Twitter, Facebook, Youtube
and Google (Search, Map, etc, all part of Alphabet Inc).
The Network Society

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Nation
State
GLOCAL*
MARKET
Social
Media
Land
ICT
Network Society Sphere
Resources
Governance
Twitter Utility
Facebook Utility
G Google Utility
YouTube Utility
Public Square
Self
Family
Relatives
Network Assets
Business Relationship
Extended Friends
Social Media Friends
Nation State Gov.
Global Marketplace
Fiat Financial System
The Blockchain(s)
Corp. Governance
Parcels
Minerals
Water
Twitter Event
Re-Twitter Event

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The Social Herd
Sociological forces create interdependence and encourage herding. On the interactions between individuals
and groups in a social learning context, group forces and group motives are important, reflecting not only
imitation and conscious identification with group but also group-centred goals and behaviour.
Social Herding can be defined as the phenomenon of individuals deciding to follow others and imitating group
behaviours rather than deciding independently and atomistically on the basis of their own, private information.
Herding theory has its roots in Keynes, who focused on the motivations to imitate and follow the crowd in a
world of uncertainty (Keynes 1930). Keynes conceived herding as a response to uncertainty and individuals’
perceptions of their own ignorance: people may follow the crowd because they think that the rest of the crowd
is better informed. This can generate instability and in financial markets herding is a key factor generating
speculative episodes. Since Keynes, socio-psychological influences have been neglected in economists’
explanations of herding. Herding cannot be easily explained as the outcome of rational expectations theory so
economists have tended to retain rationality assumptions but in a weakened form.
We can breakdown the sociological elements into 4 areas that encourage social herding;
Social PoliticalEconomic Psychological

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Follow
Follow
Twitter Public Square
Digital Neighborhood N1
Digital Neighborhood Nn+1
Twitter Utility
Facebook Utility
G Google Utility
YouTube Utility
Public Square
Twitter Event
Re-Twitter Event
Self
Family
Relatives
Network Assets
Business Relationship
Extended Friends
Social Media Friends
Tweet
Follow
Re-Tweet
Follow
Note: Excluding
Trends and Location
Based Timeline feed